SEMO baseball team awarded 2023-24 Ohio Valley Conference Team Sportsmanship Award
CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. (KBSI) – Southeast Missouri Baseball received the 2023-24 Ohio Valley Conference Team Sportsmanship Award for Baseball.
This is the third year in a row that the SEMO Baseball program took home the award.
The award is voted on by the student-athletes and coaches of the respective sports. The team awards are give to the conference squads deemed to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA. Included in the areas for evaluation are the conduct of student-athletes, coaches, staff and administrators and fans.
“Without sportsmanship there are truly no meaningful victories,” said Beth DeBauche, OVC Commissioner. “The recipients of the OVC Team Sportsmanship awards should accept this award with great pride for their fellow competitors have made it clear their teams exemplify the best in intercollegiate athletics. In receiving this prestigious honor other competitors are saying these student-athletes compete with class, respect their opponents and value fair play. That is quite a compliment as those are all traits that will lead to true victories throughout the course of life.”
The 2023-24 school year is the 19th year the team sportsmanship honors have been awarded. This is the the third-straight award for the Redhawks program.
The sportmanship award was implemented in August 2005. The team honors are the most recent addition to an awards program that recognizes and celebrates sportsmanship in the conference.
The league established the Steve Hamilton Sportsmanship Award in 1998. It is presented annually to a male or female student-athlete of junior or senior status who best exemplifies the characteristics of the late Morehead State student-athlete, coach and administrator.
The conference added the OVC Sportsmanship Award five years later. It is presented annually to the member institution selected by its peers to have best exhibited the standards of sportsmanship and ethical behavior as outlined by the OVC and NCAA.
In 1995, the Ohio Valley Conference implemented a first-of-its-kind “Sportsmanship Statement,” a policy promoting principles of fair play, ethical conduct and respect for one’s opponent.
The statement answered the challenge of the NCAA Presidents Commission to improve sportsmanship in collegiate athletics.
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